Lola on Fire

by Rio Youers

  Another, more terrifying possibility occurred to Brody, and one he couldn’t shake: Buddy’s owner, Elias Abrahamian, hadn’t called the cops because he’d decided to take matters into his own hands. He knew where Brody lived, of course, and tonight, or tomorrow night, or a week from now, he and his friends from the Armenian mob would pay him a visit. They’d kick down his door, put a bullet in Molly, then knock the shit out of Brody and cram him into the trunk of Elias’s BMW. Brody would wake up in a damp cement room, peering through bruised eyes. Steal from me, you fuckin’ piece-of-shit, skinny-ass bitch? Elias would say, selecting one from a multitude of torture implements arranged on a wooden bench. Let me show you what I do to motherfucks who steal from me.

  Brody tossed the beer without finishing it, then dashed to his room and checked the jacket he’d been wearing yet again. He checked his jeans, too, front pockets and back. No wallet. He ran out to his car and went through it, using the flashlight on his cell phone to peer into all the small corners.

  Nothing.

  He drove to Freewood Valley and parked down the street from Buddy’s, exactly where he’d parked some fourteen hours before. Knowing it was desperate, and pointless, he kicked at the trash and dead leaves at the edges of the sidewalk, and in the shallow gutter running beside the road. He ventured all the way down to Buddy’s lot, and might have gone farther, but stopped when he saw the black-and-white cruiser angled in one of the parking spaces. A coincidence? Maybe. But Brody thought it more likely that the FVPD had finally gotten around to investigating the robbery, and were in the process of viewing security footage of Brody hitting Ant the salesclerk with the grip of his pistol, then lifting two-thousand-plus dollars from the cash register.

  * * *

  Molly said, “You didn’t clean,” which was a kinder way of saying what she really wanted to: Jesus, Brody, can’t you do anything? She sat on the sofa and started to cry. Brody went to her. He held her, but his arms felt thin and feeble.

  “It’ll be okay.” His words were feeble, too.

  “October tenth. That’s fifteen days away.”

  “I know. I’ll think of something.”

  He couldn’t see beyond the more immediate problem, though: jail time or the Armenian mob. If, by some miracle, he came out of this unscathed, then he could think about a long-term living solution.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Running was an option, he supposed—shacking up at a Motel 15, a long way from town, until this whole crazy shitstorm blew over.

  “Brody?”

  “I need time to think.” He kissed Molly’s wet cheek and touched his forehead briefly to hers. When he stood up to go into the bedroom, his phone started ringing.

  * * *

  Unknown number. Brody stared at his phone’s screen for a long time. He imagined Elias Abrahamian at the other end, snarling, his gold tooth winking. I’m coming for you, bitch, he’d say as soon as Brody answered. Like a jackal.

  He let it go to voice mail, then checked his messages. There were none. His phone rang again ninety seconds later. The same number. This time Brody answered.

  “Hi, Brody.”

  “Who is this?”

  It wasn’t Elias Abrahamian, that was for sure. The voice was female, high-spirited. He imagined it belonging to a punk-haired Manga character or sk8er girl, somebody tattooed and pierced and unafraid.

  “Your new best friend,” she said, and giggled.

  “I know who you are.” Because he did. He drew a quick and accurate line from the robbery to this moment, and saw a girl with purple hair looping from beneath an Oakley beanie, wagon-red lipstick, a scar beneath her left eye. He’d collided with her on his way out of the store.

  Brody smiled, despite everything. He sensed a beat of excitement across the line—of daring.

  “So,” the girl said, and giggled again. “Do you want your wallet back?”

  Chapter Three

  Nothing ever changed at Rocky T’s. It was the same colorless décor, the same dour faces lining the bar, the same heartland rock on the jukebox. Even the bartender, Macy, was the same. She’d served every drink Brody had downed there, no matter the time of day, and never with a smile. Brody wondered if she kept a sleeping bag behind the bar that she rolled into when Rocky T’s closed its doors at three a.m., and rolled out of again to begin work a few hours later.

  He ordered a Bud Light and took a seat at one of the booths. TVs ran sports highlights and Bob Seger sang about—what else?—that old-time rock and roll. Brody looked around without making eye contact with anyone. There was no sign of the girl with the purple hair.

  Brody was early, though. Twenty minutes early. His relief that the cops didn’t have his wallet was enveloped only by his need to get out of the house. He couldn’t stand to look one minute more into Molly’s sad eyes.

  * * *

  “Waitin’ for yer date to show?” Macy asked when he ordered his second beer ten minutes later. Her bleak eyes found his for a moment, then dropped like weights. She had a fat lip on its way to healing—somebody had clearly popped her in the kisser. “You finally hit up Craigslist, find yerself a cum dumpster?”

  “Jesus, Macy, you found your calling in customer service. No doubt about it.” Brody threw a five on the bar. “Keep the change.”

  He returned to his booth, sank half of his beer in a single draw. Tom Petty belted from the juke—“Don’t Do Me Like That.”

  The girl with the purple hair arrived in a dropkick of color.

  * * *

  Not a beanie but a yellow headband that lifted her hair into a vibrant sheaf. Her earrings and jacket were the blue of a new pool table. Shockingly red lipstick. The scar beneath her eye caught the light like broken glass. She slid in across from Brody and everybody turned to see.

  “Heya.”

  Brody nodded and made a tight sound in his throat. He had hoped to appear strong. Badass. He had failed already.

  “You look,” she said, “so different without your ski mask.”

  “Jesus Christ.” A glance toward the bar. All eyes on their booth. Even Macy was looking, her fat lip curled. “You want to lower your goddamn voice?”

  “Whoops. Sorry.” Her eyes shimmered. She whispered, “You look so different when you’re not robbing a convenience store.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Brody didn’t have a game plan, but he thought he might play ignorant, deny all knowledge of the robbery, grab his wallet—give Miss Purple Hair a $20 reward—and go home. He saw now that this wasn’t going to work. The girl was sharp, and all sharp things had to be handled with care.

  He said, “You have something of mine.”

  The girl nodded, reached into her jacket pocket, and took out a Chase Bank Mastercard. She pushed it across the table. It was his Mastercard, of course, with its 23.9 percent APR and $7,500 limit (maxed).

  “Where’s the rest?” Brody asked.

  “I have it. Not with me. But it’s safe. I brought this”—she tapped the card with one bright pink fingernail—“so you’d know I’m not lying.”

  Brody sat back in his seat and looked at her through narrowed eyes. His chest tightened with impatience. He knew what she wanted: a take of the money. And how could he blame her? In her situation, he’d do the same thing.

  “How much?”

  “What?” She attempted an innocent expression, but there was too much mischief to cover. Her red lips twitched.

  “Your cut,” Brody said. “To keep quiet. That’s what this is all about, right?”

  She barked a short, hollow laugh. “Shit, Bro, do I look like I need money? These boots . . .” She lifted her right leg and clomped her boot on the table. It had a block heel, glimmering studs and buckles. “Valentino Garavani. Fifteen hundred dollars. This jacket. Seventeen hundred dollars. A birthday present. And you know what? I was pissed when I opened it because I wanted the one with the silver buttons.”

  Brody angled his head, his eyes still narrowed. He wondered what a
girl who wore $1,500 boots was doing, alone, at Buddy’s Convenience Store at 4:55 in the morning. The question touched his lips, but instead he asked:

  “So what do you want?”

  “You can start by buying me a drink.” There was a dog-eared drinks menu on the table. She grabbed it, danced her finger over the cocktails. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” Her finger came down. “Sex on the Beach. Lucky me.”

  “That’s an eight-dollar fucking cocktail,” Brody gasped. “How about a shot of Tiger Breath? Tastes like shit, but it’s only a buck fifty.”

  “Tempting, Brody. Very.” She dropped a wink that pulled at something inside him. “Sex on the Beach. Make it snappy.”

  Brody rolled his eyes, went to the bar, ordered the drink.

  “Shit, boy,” Macy remarked. Still no smile, but her broken lip lifted. “She’s got you wrapped around her finger.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Macy mixed. Brody waited, looking at his sneaker tops, not at the old drunk next to him who’d started to sing along to Mellencamp, getting the lyrics wrong—

  “. . . hold onto six piece, long as you can, Chinese come around real soon mixing women and men . . .”

  —and then Macy pushed the cocktail toward him, tall and orangey-red and served in a murky glass. Brody thanked her with a nod, reeled away from the bar, handed the drink to the girl with the purple hair as he took his seat in the booth. She closed her lips around the straw, cheeks dented as she sucked. “Dee-fucking-lish.” She giggled, sucked again, and Brody, male, red-blooded, flushed from the groin out. He cleared his throat and mopped a film of sweat from his nose.

  “I know a little about you, Brody,” the girl said a moment later, swirling her drink with the straw. “I looked you up on Facebook. Everybody’s favorite glory hole.”

  “Cute.”

  “Twenty-four years old. Star sign, Virgo. Dropped out of high school at seventeen—”

  “To help my old man pay the bills.”

  “You like Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire, and Stranger Things. Is The Matrix really your favorite movie?”

  “It’s a classic.”

  “Seventy-nine friends. (By the way, some of them aren’t really friends.) Relationship status: nada. Worked at Wolfe Aluminum—past tense. Your sister, Molly, has cerebral palsy.”

  “And yet I know nothing about you.” Brody swigged from his beer, warm now, and flat. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Blair.”

  “As in, Witch Project?”

  “Oh shit. That’s an old one, Bro.” That short, hollow laugh again. “I expected better from you.”

  “I guess I left my A-game at home.” Brody sneered. That was the second time she’d shortened his name, or perhaps she was calling him bro, as in brother. Either way, it felt too familiar, too goddamn chummy, and he didn’t like it. “So what do you want, Blair?”

  “I’m getting to that.” She sucked on her straw again, managing to smile at the same time. Her eyes had a cunning he couldn’t help but find alluring. “You know all about loss, don’t you, Brody? That deep, soul-sucking hurt. I’m guessing you still feel it.”

  Brody cleared his throat again.

  Blair said, “Your father died seven months ago. Suicide. I read about it online. He jumped off the Folgt Building.”

  “What does any of this have to do with my goddamn wallet?” Brody leaned across the table. He gripped the edges with hands that had started to tremble.

  “Your mom’s not around, huh? Did she run away with her boss? Her brother-in-law?” Blair leaned across the table, too, her eyes digging into his. The glow around her dimmed. “Is she dead?”

  “Dead to me.” There were sparks in Brody’s voice. He let go of the table and flexed his hands. “You know what, keep the wallet. I don’t need this shit.”

  “I’m not going to keep it, Brody. What the fuck do I want with an empty wallet?” Blair sat back, sucked playfully on her straw, all candy and rainbows again. “I’ll just hand it over to the police, tell them where and when I found it. Armed robbery is a felony, Brody. I think you know that. But did you know that here, in South Carolina, it carries a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison?”

  Brody covered his tired eyes.

  “Up to thirty years. Thirty fucking years, man, with no shot at parole for the first seven.” Blair whistled through her teeth. “Who’s going to look after your sister while you’re stamping license plates at the state pen?”

  “The cops’ll want to know why you didn’t hand the wallet over at the time,” Brody ventured. It was a desperate, straw-grasping plea, but it was all he had. “Withholding evidence—obstruction of justice—is an offense, too, Blair. Is that a chance you’re willing to take?”

  “I’ll tell them I feared for my life,” Blair said, and grinned. “You’d seen my face and . . . yeah, you had this crazy look in your eyes, and . . . well, I was just so scared you’d find a way to track me down.” Her grin disappeared. She turned her lips down and her eyes swelled—huge brown O’s brimming with guilelessness. “In the end, and despite the danger, I decided it was the right thing to do.”

  Brody groaned. He felt drained.

  “You know, I think they’ll be so jazzed with the evidence, and so busy dealing with you, that they won’t bother with me.” She grinned again. “Or maybe not. But hey, is that a chance you’re willing to take?”

  The jukebox switched tracks. The pinball machine flashed. Someone at the bar cracked a joke and there was a clamor of laughter. Macy didn’t smile. Brody took all this in with his tired eyes.

  “I’ve got you where I want you,” Blair said.

  “Okay.” Brody opened his arms, expanding the target. “So what’s this about?”

  Blair leaned across the table again. Everything about her was reckless, dangerous, exhilarating. She touched his hand—stroked it, suggestively, and Brody’s heart clanged like a rock against an empty barrel.

  She said, “I want you to steal something for me.”

  * * *

  “I’m not a thief.”

  “There’s surveillance video at Buddy’s Convenience Store that says differently.”

  “That was a one-off. I was desperate.”

  “You’re still desperate.”

  Brody had no answer to that. He tried to hold her gaze—to show some damn backbone—but she outshone him, as intense as a light in an interrogation room. He stared at the dregs of his warm beer instead, his fingers drumming idly on the tabletop. When he looked up again, Blair had slumped back in her seat. Her head was down.

  “I know about loss, too.” Her voice was almost too soft to hear. She had switched from manic to forlorn in a matter of seconds. “I can’t remember the last time I had a good night’s sleep. And all this . . .” She gestured at her purple hair and savagely colored lips. “It’s a mask, Bro, hiding that deep, soul-sucking hurt I was talking about. Sometimes it feels like an anchor strapped to my ankle. I can float. I can ride the waves. But I’m always stuck in the same place.”

  “You’ve known me twenty minutes,” Brody said. The iciness in his voice was a barefaced attempt to jump on her when she was down—to take back an iota of control. “You can call me Brody.”

  “Well, excuse me, BRO-deeeeeee.” She rolled her eyes, then lowered them again. “My mom died nineteen months ago. February twenty-sixth, 2018. One year—to the day—before your dad died, in fact. So I guess, despite the sugary frosting and Valentino Garavani boots, we’ve got something in common.”

  Brody’s jaw throbbed. His throat was so dry that he drank the dregs of his beer anyway, and shuddered all the way to his pelvis.

  “She had bone cancer,” Blair continued. “It took her out quickly. From diagnosis to dead in four months. She was forty-six years old.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s . . .” Anything Brody said would be redundant, so he closed his mouth.

  “There are a few things you need to know.” Blair looked up again. Some of the
flare had returned to her expression. “First, my mom was my best friend. We did everything together, and her death stopped me in my tracks. I attempted suicide three times, and came close once—had to have my stomach pumped at a hospital in Munich. The second thing you need to know is that my asshole father was cheating on her—even during her illness—with a woman named Meredith. Now, you’ve never met Meredith, but you know her. Just picture every hoity-toity, money-grubbing bitch you’ve ever seen in any movie or soap opera, like, ever.”

  Brody gestured to indicate he had such a picture in his head.

  “That’s Meredith,” Blair snapped. “She’s a fucking vile human being. An upper-level biznatch. And get this . . . she’s my stepmom now.”

  “Well, shit, I’m sorry about your luck.” Brody rubbed his eyes. “With that, and not getting the exact seventeen-hundred-dollar jacket you wanted, my heart just fucking bleeds for you.”

  “Asshole.”

  “You want to cut to the chase?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, do you have somewhere else to be?” Blair raised her voice. “JAIL, maybe?”

  Brody stiffened in his seat, then looked the length of the bar to see if Blair had drawn any extra attention. She had; several whiskery faces had swiveled their way. “Punch her in the eye,” one of those faces growled—Brody wasn’t sure which one. “Mind your goddamn business,” he barked back emptily. “I’ll punch you in the eye.”

  “The third thing you need to know,” Blair continued, unruffled by the attention, “is that my mom promised me her diamonds. It wasn’t in her will or anything. It was something we talked about—an understanding between the two of us.” She gestured at her ears and throat. “A pendant. Matching earrings. From Harry Winston. Not their top-of-the-line set, but probably worth fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus,” Brody said.

  “They were a graduation gift from Nancy Reagan.”